I spent too much time playing games this weekend and not enough time writing about playing games this weekend, so this post is going to be short.
Ship of Heroes
Half the fun of any of these superhero games is making characters ripped from the headlines. And so for this weekend’s content test, I made Childless Cat Lady, a woman who has just been informed by a politician that her entire existence has no meaning if she is not caring for children or grandchildren. And so she is striking out to defeat evil and prove that women do not have to cater to one man’s expectation about their worth.
Anyway. This weekend, we were supposed to test the character creator — I checked that box off — and also a new mission arc.
I could not find the mission arc. Cat Lady only found the introductory Mages Guild mission arc that I’ve done before. There were some speech bubbles on the map, including one that said the NPC was “Tester”, but I couldn’t find them in the world. I logged on to a previous test character who was of higher level, and no such dice. That character was congratulated to finishing a previous test arc, but no new one was given.
I suppose I should have gone on the Discord and found out what was up. It just kind of bugged me that there wasn’t a quest giver somewhere obvious that said HERE IS WHAT WE WANT YOU TO TEST.
Persona 5 Tactica
You played Persona 5. You played Persona 5 Royal. You played Persona 5 Strikers. You played Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight. (Or maybe that was just me). Still, you’re begging for more Persona 5!
Granted!
Persona 5 Tactica, is a tactical RPG in the vein of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and similar games. A member of the Japanese Imperial Diet1 has gone missing. Joker is about to leave Tokyo and return home when the entire crew (sans the Persona 5 Royal characters, so far) finds themselves in a new world ruled by mad queen Marie (and given the Napoleonic designs of the shadows in this world, probably meant to riff on Marie Antoinette). Marie almost immediately brainwashes the crew, except for Mona and Joker, into becoming her top soldiers.
Joker and Mona soon come across the leader of Le Resistance, Erina, and they work together to free their friends, defeat Antoinette, and assure the safety of any missing politicians they might come across.
The tactics side has some nice twists on the usual theme that play into each teammate’s character and history. I’ll have a better review once I finish it.
Giants Citizen Kabuto
I bought this game a few weeks ago at a retro game shop. I never played it, but it seemed cool when it came out and it was a game I always wanted to play. It’s an action RPG where you play through the story of three different factions — Meccs (Cockney storm troopers), Delphi (sirens), and Kabuto (a kaiju). BogusMeatFactory played through this entire game recently on DOS and didn’t enjoy it that much. I was hoping the PS2 version would be better.
I play on the PCSX2 emulator and not actual hardware, and the controller I was using was just a little too sensitive. I wasn’t able to fully complete the second mission — saving four of the many “Smarties” that are dangling from cliffs. The view was just too twitchy. I’ll probably adjust the controller settings and try again; I’m not giving up on it yet.
I did find the black turbaned “smarties” a little offensive and I am not sure why. They reminded me of that old man from the Sinbad stories who clamps on to Sinbad’s back and refuses to let go, demanding to be carried everywhere.
More later!
- I always assumed that it was pronounced “dee-ut” when used in the context of the Imperial Diet of Japan. The voice actors here all pronounce it “die-ut”, the same way as the food meaning. After some research — they were right, I was wrong. “Diet” is pronounced “die-ut” in both food and political settings. ↩︎
Giants, Citizen Kabuto… that name takes me back. I am not sure I ever played it, either, but I guess this goes to show you how much a curious name can help to lodge a game in your memory.
It’s all confused in my mind with Molyneux’s “Black and White”, which also involves a kaiju, though you don’t control it directly. I’d thought this was a game where you chose a faction and then there were battles — again, like Black & White — but that is not what GCK is, either.
I still like the idea of Giants, but I need to be able to play it with the controller I have. This was the issue I had with that other PS2 tactical game I couldn’t get to run acceptably. If all my time is spent thinking how terrible it controls, I’m not going to play it. But I just assume it played better on the original hardware.
I am intrigued and want to hear more about the adventures of the great Childless Cat Lady…
I’ll have to give her her moment next time the game opens for testing 🙂